A user of a computing system (or “client device”) backs up data from the client device to a storage device to protect the data from loss. The data may be backed up on a per-application basis, per-file, as blocks of data, or as an image backup. A backup may include one or more save sets, each of which may contain one or more files or blocks of data. The backup target storage device may be coupled to the client device, or the target storage may be coupled to a backup server across a network, and the client device can be coupled to the backup server. During a backup of client device data to a target storage, a failure can happen that prevents the backup from completing. A failure can be a power failure or other a loss of communication with the target storage such as a loose or faulty cable, a backup server failure, or a target storage device failure. In such case, partial, incomplete data will remain on the storage device, taking up valuable storage space. A user may want to reclaim or “free-up” storage space on the storage device by deleting save sets and associated metadata from backups that never completed and/or backups that are very old.
In addition, a first version of an application software may back up data to a first target directory, and a newer, second version of the application may back up data to a second target directory. This is particularly problematic when a user performs a final backup of data generated by the first version of the application, before upgrading the application to the newer, second version of the application. If any problem occurs with the application data on the client device during the upgrade to the second, newer version of the application, the user may need to immediately restore the data from backup of the first version of the software. But, the data backed up using the first version of the application may not restore to the correct directory for the newer second application.